Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story should have reported the University of Colorado Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science annually graduates about 10 Ph.D students, 50 master of science students, and 200 bachelor of science students in aerospace engineering sciences. The story has been updated.
Boulder County space exploration industry is poised to take off. With large corporations that are involved in NASA’s Moon to Mars plan and expanding home-grown businesses in the region, the industry saw significant growth last year and isn’t ready to slow down.
Major contractors, including Sierra Nevada Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., have increased their presence in Boulder County. Locally born companies Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette and Boulder and Longmont’s Roccor are also expanding after being acquired last year. As job creation continues., Colorado’s talent pipeline is supported by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Aerospace companies respond to U.S. visions
All forms of aerospace companies whether big or small, or conducting civil or defense activity, work towards national goals, said Vicky Lea, director aerospace and aviation at the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.
“You have kind of a national vision, a national space-exploration vision, and then that obviously drives companies, a commercial response to provide the products and the technologies that are going to be needed to fulfill that mission,” Lea said.
The NASA Artemis program, a goal to return to the moon with the first woman to land on its surface by 2024, has an estimated economic impact of $2.6 billion on the state, Lea said, more than half of the entire space industry’s $4.5 billion economic impact on Colorado.
Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor for the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis program. On Jan. 14, Lockheed Martin transferred the Orion spacecraft to NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems for the first flight of the program, Artemis I. The flight is slated for November, and will orbit the moon and return to Earth without a crew.
The design work in Colorado mostly happens at the Waterton Canyon facility in Jefferson County, while assembly is completed at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, said Colorado-based Joe Rice, director of government relations at Lockheed Martin Space.
Part of Lockheed Martin’s operations in Boulder County — Boulder and Longmont — includes cyber security and artificial intelligence. The company’s WindTracer, a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) wind and aerosol measurement technology that can inform air traffic controllers of wind hazards, is based out of its Louisville facility.
“WindTracer is used around the world to improve aviation safety and airport departure and arrival efficiency in addition to wind resources, and meteorological research,” Rice said in an email.
Lockheed Martin Space has more than 600 employees in Boulder County and 9,400 total for the state. Last year, the company experienced a 6% growth and is recruiting for around 650 positions in Colorado.
Lockheed’s Orion will ultimately carry astronauts to orbit, and a human landing system will carry them to the surface. Sierra Nevada is bidding for that contract to build the human landing system that will land the first woman and second man on the moon for the Artemis III flight. It would be a subcontractor to Alabama-based Dynetics Inc., a subsidiary of Leidos Holdings Inc., to astronauts and cargo to and from the moon’s surface. Dynetics and Sierra Nevada are up against SpaceX and Blue Origin.
In Louisville, Sierra Nevada is building the Dream Chaser Space Plane, a commercial vehicle capable of landing on a runway. Dream Chaser has a contract with NASA to fly six cargo missions to the International Space Station by 2024, but Janet L. Kavandi, veteran NASA astronaut and executive vice president in the Sierra Nevada’s Space Systems Group based in Louisville, said the ultimate goal is to transport people.
Sierra Nevada is proposing its Large Inflatable Fabric Environment as part of NASA’s modular Gateway orbiting the moon, which will replace the aging International Space Station. The habitat will be large enough to accommodate living amenities and a hydroponic garden for astronauts to grow fresh food, said Kavandi.
She added that the industry is entering a new era of space exploration where commercial companies can build off of NASA’s discoveries.
“What the new era of space is about is commercializing now. Now that NASA sort of paved the way with exploration, and we pretty much got down the science living in low-Earth orbit(LEO), that’s why we can build the space station … put that in low-Earth orbit by commercial companies, and then that sort of frees up NASA to then do the harder things again,” Kavandi said, such as achieving human habitation on the surface of the moon and later applying that research to exploring Mars.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., a subsidiary of Ball Corp. that has operated in Boulder since 1956, wants to add a 375,000-square-foot expansion at its Boulder campus at 1600 Commerce St. It submitted preliminary plans to Boulder to extend its planned unit development agreement that is set to expire in August and to build three non-manufacturing buildings, along with a parking garage and a sky bridge over Commerce Street. In addition, “numerous” large spacecraft clean rooms would be included in the expansion, according to planning documents, BizWest reported.
Ball is seeking to build the buildings up to 55 feet and increase the floor-to-area ratio past what is currently allowed, according to planning documents. In planning documents, Ball wrote that its ability to expand on the Boulder Campus is to increase aerospace production and testing capabilities and will “help determine the future of Ball Aerospace in Boulder.”
“Ball Aerospace, a leading developer of spacecraft, instruments, sensors and advanced data solutions, has a long and robust relationship with Boulder that spans nearly 65 years. As our business has grown, so has our community footprint. Beginning in 1969 as a 319-square-foot manufacturing facility, in 2014 we expanded the Ball Fisher Manufacturing Complex by an additional 82,000 square feet to create a modern production complex,” a Ball spokeswoman said in an email, as previously reported by BizWest. “Ball continues to expand in both the number of programs and employees, recently hiring an additional 1,000 new local team members.
“In order to maintain our ability to continue growing our presence in Boulder, in a way that aligns with the community’s unique history, culture and strong commitment to sustainability, we are renewing Ball’s existing Planned Unit Development with the Boulder County Planning Division,” the spokeswoman continued. The updated PUD will ensure that the business maintains options for expansion, which is essential to support continued growth, additional hiring and program execution.”
BizWest reported that a traffic-assessment by Civtrans Engineering Inc. for Ball estimates that the current 841 employees at the Boulder Campus would grow to 1,932 by the end of buildout in 2034.
It is unclear how the company will proceed if it can’t build the large expansion that it’s proposing. Ball submitted its concept plan on Jan. 25 and should receive comments back from city planners on Friday. The Boulder Development Review Committee could be reviewed mid-February, according to reporting by BizWest.
Small companies make large contributions to commercial space
While Colorado and Boulder County have operations from large aerospace corporations Sierra Nevada and Lockheed Martin, smaller businesses make up most of the state’s profile. According to 2019 data from the Metro Denver EDC, 60% of the 280 direct aerospace companies in 2019 employ fewer than 10 people. Colorado now has about 290 companies in the sector, Lea said.
“Colorado has always sort of been a major aerospace state based on its military roots. That means that that attracts prime contractors. Prime contractors, you know, then attract sort of more employment growth,” Lea said. “And then you’ve got here in Colorado this kind of exceptional combination of those big prime aerospace and defense contractors, but also with a really robust segment of smaller aerospace companies that really kind of reflect that kind of more entrepreneurial innovation component that Colorado does so well.”
Lea said that successful companies in Colorado are being acquired and becoming stronger. Two Boulder County-grown businesses doing just that are Roccor and Blue Canyon.
Blue Canyon, a Lafayette small-satellite and spacecraft company, was acquired by Raytheon Technologies Corp. in December. Blue Canyon reports to the Raytheon Intelligence and Space business unit, adding small-satellite technologies and mission services to the parent company’s space portfolio.
Blue Canyon is a vertically integrated small-satellite company, said George Stafford, co-founder and CEO, meaning that it controls its supply chain. He said Blue Canyon tries to lower the barrier of entry to space for any customer.
“The acquisition will ultimately allow Raytheon to deliver more robust mission capabilities to customers. The great part of the acquisition is that Blue Canyon continues to operate as the same, vertically integrated and consumer-focused company that we have always been — just now as a part of Raytheon Technologies,” Stafford said in a prepared statement.
Blue Canyon doubled its staff last year to 300 between its Boulder and Lafayette facilities and is still hiring, he said. It opened up the Crescent Satellite Constellation Factory, the 80,000-square-foot facility in Lafayette in June. Stafford said that the new factory can hold up to 275 workers at full operation, and build about 200 satellites a year between it and the Boulder location.
Roccor LLC, a Longmont-based aerospace technology and small-satellite maker, was acquired by Redwire LLC in November. Redwire was formed that summer by private equity firm AE Industrial Partners, LP. Roccor kept its headquarters in Longmont, with plans to grow its staff from about 80 to more than 100 by early 2021, BizWest previously reported.
“Through the acquisition of Roccor, Redwire adds deployable booms, structures, antennas, thermal products, and solar arrays that have a proven performance record with over 75 successfully launched systems in orbit today with additional systems planned to launch next year,” Redwire spokesperson Austin Jordan wrote in an email.
Redwire and Roccor won a subcontract to develop a deployable structure for NASA’s Solar Cruiser mission, the companies announced Tuesday. Roccor’s deployable structure is for a solar sail that will allow researchers to view the sun from different perspectives.
The talent pipeline
While several sectors continue to face economic difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado’s aerospace industry upped its workforce in 2020. Total direct employment for state aerospace companies totaled 33,110, a 10% growth between 2019 and 2020, Lea said.
Though California still beats Colorado in total aerospace employment, Colorado is leading in workers per capita. Lea said that the national average of private-sector aerospace employment to its population is 0.2%. Colorado is 1.1%.
While companies are attracting workers, CU Boulder is producing new talent.
“Another reason why we have such a robust aerospace industry cluster here, and why companies want to continue to locate here and expand here, it is partly because we have such a robust talent pipeline from education institutions like CU Boulder, which is a leader in aerospace research and development,” Lea said.
CU Boulder’s Ann & H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences of the
College of Engineering and Applied Science annually graduates about 10 Ph.D students, 50 master of science students, and 200 bachelor of science students in aerospace engineering sciences, said Mark Meaney, scholar in residence with the Division of Social Responsibility and Sustainability at CU Leeds School of Business.
Meaney is the principal instigator for the Space Sustainability Initiative, a program between the Leeds School of Business and Smead. On Jan. 25, CU Boulder and the Secure World Foundation announced a memorandum of understanding to launch the initiative.
With the aerospace sector positioned for growth, orbital debris surrounding Earth from every launch could also increase. SSI was created to ensure the commercialization of space proceeds with sustainability in mind.
The initiative is backed by an external advisory board with representatives from NASA, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed Martin and more.
The first phase of the initiative would calculate the orbital debris within low-Earth orbit and then develop a commercial space market analysis. A guide for business models based on that commercial space market analysis would then inform space entrepreneurs entering the sector. Meaney said that it will help companies understand their potential contribution to existing orbital debris.
Ultimately, a set of norms of behavior for business activity would be voluntarily adopted by commercial companies.
“Our interest is economic, but the economic as it relates to sustainability,” Meaney said. “If everyone does what they want to do in space, then no one will be able to do what they want to do in space because it’s a common pool resource. And if we don’t coordinate our activity, we will degrade that resource. And so we will prevent economic growth within the commercial space industry.”
Meaney said that space exploration will have a positive impact on economic activity. But, to ensure this aerospace industry launch keeps growing, the sector will need to be sustainable.